Five Walls Projects

Last Days to see “When Choosing What To Vow” by Eva Stimson Clark:

This body of work explores stitching on cardboard as both a material process and a way of organising thought. Built from fragments, the surfaces evoke digital glitches, yet remain grounded in tactile labour. Much of the cardboard retains its original printed surface—glossy, consistent, and commercially produced—while sections of hand-painted material introduce matte, irregular passages where brushstrokes remain visible. This interplay between found and authored surfaces creates a tension between uniformity and gesture, system and intervention.

Through layering, piercing, and repetition, the works shift beyond collage into constructed fields that feel both architectural and unstable. Each composition forms around a compressed zone of colour and energy that appears to pulse. Threads bind the surface with precision and force; every puncture is deliberate, an act of anchoring against dispersal. Yet the edges resist containment, lifting and extending as if under pressure.

Light activates these contrasts, moving between glossy print and matte paint so the surface vibrates between cohesion and disruption. What emerges is not decoration but a dynamic structure: organised chaos shaped through rhythm, insistence, and alteration.

Working with discarded materials, Eva constructs a visual language from debris. The act of assembling becomes a way to process fragmentation—externalising disorder so it can be confronted, mapped, and momentarily held. In this space, making operates as both resistance and repair: a method for holding form, while allowing energy to move through it.

Eva Stimson Clark

Last days to see Harmony by Elisabeth Bodey:

Colour and structure in painting can reflect harmonies of sound. The musician/composer referred to his compositions as ‘being afloat on the waves of sound’. I see ‘being afloat’ as referencing the sense of harmony that can be achieved through the merging of different aspects such as colour, space, structure and line, texture, tempo, rhythm and form.

On the traditional piano, there is the music rack above the keys that holds the pianists music pages. I have referenced this structure in my paintings, acting as a go-between, between music and painting. Its inclusion contextualises the shared aspects of both contemporary classical i.e. New Music and painting. I see it as ‘holding’ the conversation between the two forms.

Liz Bodey

📸 by Christian Capurro

Continuing in Project Spaces 1 & 2 is Harmony by Elisabeth Bodey:

Colour and structure in painting can reflect harmonies of sound. The musician/composer referred to his compositions as ‘being afloat on the waves of sound’. I see ‘being afloat’ as referencing the sense of harmony that can be achieved through the merging of different aspects such as colour, space, structure and line, texture, tempo, rhythm and form.

On the traditional piano, there is the music rack above the keys that holds the pianists music pages. I have referenced this structure in my paintings, acting as a go-between, between music and painting. Its inclusion contextualises the shared aspects of both contemporary classical i.e. New Music and painting. I see it as ‘holding’ the conversation between the two forms.

Liz Bodey

Open today 12-5pm

Applications to exhibit in our Project Spaces in 2027 are now open.

We welcome applications from artists, curators, collectives, and collaborative groups working across diverse contemporary practices.

The Project Spaces program provides opportunities for experimentation, new work, and concept-driven exhibitions within Five Walls’ established contemporary art context. Situated in Melbourne’s inner west, the program supports emerging and established practitioners seeking to develop ambitious projects and engage with new audiences.

Since 2012, Five Walls has supported contemporary artists through an artist-centred exhibition program that balances experimentation with professional development and commercial opportunity. The Project Spaces provide a platform for ambitious new projects while connecting artists with Five Walls’ established audience of collectors, curators, arts professionals, and the broader public.

While we welcome a broad range of contemporary practices, Five Walls has a particular interest in supporting artists working in abstraction and non-objective practices.

We encourage proposals from practitioners at all career stages. Interdisciplinary, research-based, installation, performance, and time-based practices are welcome.

For information on how to submit your application please visit www.fivewalls.com.au/for-artists (link in bio).

Applications close July 13, 2026.

image: Britt Salt and Shannon Slee “Me and the Girls Don’t Want to be Boxed” June, 2025
credit: Astrid Mulder Photography

Continuing in Project Space 3 is When Choosing What To Vow by Eva Stimson Clark:

This body of work explores stitching on cardboard as both a material process and a way of organising thought. Built from fragments, the surfaces evoke digital glitches, yet remain grounded in tactile labour. Much of the cardboard retains its original printed surface—glossy, consistent, and commercially produced—while sections of hand-painted material introduce matte, irregular passages where brushstrokes remain visible. This interplay between found and authored surfaces creates a tension between uniformity and gesture, system and intervention.

Through layering, piercing, and repetition, the works shift beyond collage into constructed fields that feel both architectural and unstable. Each composition forms around a compressed zone of colour and energy that appears to pulse. Threads bind the surface with precision and force; every puncture is deliberate, an act of anchoring against dispersal. Yet the edges resist containment, lifting and extending as if under pressure.

Light activates these contrasts, moving between glossy print and matte paint so the surface vibrates between cohesion and disruption. What emerges is not decoration but a dynamic structure: organised chaos shaped through rhythm, insistence, and alteration.

Working with discarded materials, Eva constructs a visual language from debris. The act of assembling becomes a way to process fragmentation—externalising disorder so it can be confronted, mapped, and momentarily held. In this space, making operates as both resistance and repair: a method for holding form, while allowing energy to move through it.

Eva Stimson Clark

Continuing today in Project Space 4 is “On an Ideology of Schisms” by Stephen Wickham:

The work in this exhibition draws on the tradition of the avant guard artists of Ukraine and Russia: roughly 1900-1930s. Their formal inventiveness and historical significance continue to engage my attention.

The imperatives of Soviet era art being played to an audience and culture so utterly different has a shudder of the absurd. Then perhaps the Eurocentric construct of classical naturalism and multi point perspective have grown beyond the use of the Church?

Non-Objective Art is unpopular and commonplace. The historical complexities and grandeur imbedded in the graphic symbolism of States and Churches are prosecuted as orthodoxy, briefly. Meanings, in art, are malleable and dependent on context which is always in flux. The ever-optimistic hero Candide would love being an artist in Australia today.’

Stephen Wickham, 2026

Opening Friday from 6-9pm in Project Spaces 1 & 2 is Harmony by Elisabeth Bodey:

Colour and structure in painting can reflect harmonies of sound. The musician/composer referred to his compositions as ‘being afloat on the waves of sound’. I see ‘being afloat’ as referencing the sense of harmony that can be achieved through the merging of different aspects such as colour, space, structure and line, texture, tempo, rhythm and form.

On the traditional piano, there is the music rack above the keys that holds the pianists music pages. I have referenced this structure in my paintings, acting as a go-between, between music and painting. Its inclusion contextualises the shared aspects of both contemporary classical i.e. New Music and painting. I see it as ‘holding’ the conversation between the two forms.

Opening this Friday from 6-9pm is When Choosing What To Vow by Eva Stimson Clark:

This body of work explores stitching on cardboard as both a material process and a way of organising thought. Built from fragments, the surfaces evoke digital glitches, yet remain grounded in tactile labour. Much of the cardboard retains its original printed surface—glossy, consistent, and commercially produced—while sections of hand-painted material introduce matte, irregular passages where brushstrokes remain visible. This interplay between found and authored surfaces creates a tension between uniformity and gesture, system and intervention.

Through layering, piercing, and repetition, the works shift beyond collage into constructed fields that feel both architectural and unstable. Each composition forms around a compressed zone of colour and energy that appears to pulse. Threads bind the surface with precision and force; every puncture is deliberate, an act of anchoring against dispersal. Yet the edges resist containment, lifting and extending as if under pressure.

Light activates these contrasts, moving between glossy print and matte paint so the surface vibrates between cohesion and disruption. What emerges is not decoration but a dynamic structure: organised chaos shaped through rhythm, insistence, and alteration.

Working with discarded materials, Eva constructs a visual language from debris. The act of assembling becomes a way to process fragmentation—externalising disorder so it can be confronted, mapped, and momentarily held. In this space, making operates as both resistance and repair: a method for holding form, while allowing energy to move through it.

Concluding this afternoon at 5pm is Artworks & Bookworks by Steven Tonkin:

In my artwork I draw a creative lineage from the radical experiments with the book form that characterised early 20th century Modernism, specifically Constructivism and Bauhaus graphic design and typography. As a curator and writer, I also have a specific interest in Conceptual art of the 1960s and Australian Post-Object practice in the 1970s as theoretical reference points within global conceptualism. Artist’s books are a key focus of my creative practice, while more broadly I find inspiration in the intersections of geometric abstraction with text, graphics, posters and signage. I try to explore tensions between the textual and pictorial, conceptual and material, functional and sculptural, so as to address both art historical and current perspectives. Last year I undertook a residency in Berlin, which gave me the opportunity to visit the Bauhaus, Masters’ Houses and new Museum in Dessau. This experience has provided the impetus for my recent approach, in which I endeavour to adapt some of the basic principles from Kandinsky’s ‘Point and Line to Plane’ (1926) into my own work. In my ‘multiple’ bookworks there is an implicit duality that binds the mechanical with the handmade. I start by making a hand-painted template, which is then scanned, photocopied or commercially printed, with each copy then finally hand-cut and manually folded to complete the edition. Critical to my thinking are the ideals and ethics of ‘democratic multiple’ artists’ books, which I advocate for their ongoing relevance in contemporary practice. Steven Tonkin 2026

Congratulations to George Huon on his solo show Solaris that is coming to an end this afternoon. We have all enjoyed the smiles that this show has brought to us all.

The exhibition concludes today at 5pm.